I'm creating this new thread for feature requests for the next version of Advanced Tactics. I don't know where that is on Vic's schedule, but thought we give him some ideas. Here are a some that come to my mind:

1) Increase playable people groups from seven to at least 8 (game has eight but one is used only for mercs) 2) In an alliance, make map sharing an option that can be turned on/off. Off by default. Make it so that both players in an alliance must enable before it reveals your map view. 3) Add the ability to message all players vice just one at a time. 4) Log all messages a player sends/receives to a text file. Tag them with game date and regime name. Amongst other things would aide in writing AARs. 5) Make use of the Slitherine game server for setting up/finding multi-player games. 6) Make it so that a non-ally can give you land and tech. Use Case 1: Player A demands from Player B certain hexes or else. Use Case 2: Player B is at war with Player A and wants peace. Player A says give me these hexes and its a deal. 7) A random game setup option: Permanent alliances. In games without this option enabled, charge a PP fee for breaking an alliance. 8) A button for turning on/off NATO counters (so we no longer need a NATO mod). 9) Smarter AI (I know it is a very difficult task) 10) Shore batteries (so artillery can no longer be used to fire on warships [DD, CA, BB, CV])

I'm sure I'll think of others. I would mention leaders/officers but I believe Vic is already considering it.

Additional ideas (01/23/12): 1a) Ability to ally with AI. 2a) Ability to influence AI's policies: go to war, remain neutral, make peace, etc. 3a) Random maps where a regime's nation isn't broken into 2 or 3 geographically separated areas (make it a selectable option). If there is a lot of water, this can't be avoided but it would be nice if the routine did its best to not separate your land area. 4a) Additional political state: non-aggression pact (Charge 10PP fee to create and 10PP fee to cancel. Have it unbreakable for a minimum number of turns (10?). If declaring war while in a NAP agreement, charge 30PPs vice 20 for the declaration of war.)

Note: The implementation of 3a in a patch to ATG would be most welcome.

1) Completely overhauled and improved AI. No more shloshing on the freebies, make it work for things. Make the AI capable of using all the units in the release unit lists and make it use them with some effective level of "intelligence". Make it capable of dealing with water maps as well as land maps.

That is a showstopper for me, without that, I will not purchase anything. I bought ATG on the hopes that the next rev would do the one thing I wanted from ATG and that was the last time I'll do that. I won't buy until months after release and after proven, player established AI capabilities. Otherwise it's back to Empire Deluxe for me. I've already bought ATG which I was hoping would be #1 and it isn't.

2) Webizen's # 5 3) A more advanced RG balancing scheme for the initial placement of the regimes and resources.

1.Ai improvement 2.more people groups 3.make people groups more unique - units/different leader abilities/buildings? 4.buttons on UI to show only certain units i.e. show only HQ's, show only engineers ect. 5.ability to load/use more than 1 mod at a time, maybe make it JSME compatible

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*I'm in the Wargamer middle ground* I don't buy all the wargames I want, I just buy more than I need.

Could the AI could be exposed to modding via either an embedded script interpreter or API that external programs/plugins could use?

In theory, modders could then add a variety of opponents with different styles, abilities, and limitations. (No way to know how many would do so, or how good the opponents would be, of course.) A tournament mode, pitting different AI opponents against each other in a series of random games, could potentially help to develop stronger AIs over time.

Civilization and Solar Vengeance went that route, although I haven't really played much Civ since then and prefer the older turn-based Solar Vengeance. I don't know if any conventional wargames like ATG that have done that, though.

Shadehawk's ability to duplicate formations (I'm big on this, wrote a lot about it under "Templates" heading or something like that)

Lazy Boy's create and transfer suggestion.

I've got two lists:

Probably difficult and most players don't care anyway: 1. The ability to create units from a pre-defined template. Either through the production screen, or through the card system, doesn't matter. 2. The ability to reinforce your units to a predefined template with one click (either a bunch of them, or one at a time). This would work wonders for those HUGE East Front scenarios...if I have a infantry units that I always want to have at least 30 Rifle, 3 MG and 3 Mortar, 5 horses, I want to be able to reinforce depleted infantry units to that standard with one click.

Should be easy: 1. The ability to rename units from the OOB screen. I'm a total OCD freak when it comes to organization and unit naming, etc. I'd love to be able to get all my freakish naming ducks in a row from the OOB screen, instead of wandering around the map.

1) Land ownership - currently if land that you owned is captured by an opposing player it is converted to their ownership. No problem there. If you have an ally and they liberate that land for you, it is converted to their land. Perhaps arguments could be made that this is as it should be. I'd like to see an option that would allow liberated land to be automatically restored to the original owner.

2) There are currently three political states: neutral, allied or at war. I'd like to propose a fourth option: Lend-Lease. The lend-lease option would allow you to give researched techs to another player but would not allow shared maps, giving units or moving units/tracing supply through another's territory. If the game could be re-engineered, it would be good if you could also give supplies, oil and raw via the lend-lease option. Perhaps even make it so that you could charge the player receiving the lead-lease a certain amount of PPs (or a new resource (gold?) that could be used to pay for stuff.

Note: If my Non-Aggression Pact idea is adopted and the Lend-Lease option, there would be five political states.

I think these proposals would add a lot to the fun factor of ATG and make multi-player games even more interesting.

2) more "lines" in combat, front line, behind front line, rear, and staging, in a battle with rifles, mortars, artillery, and staff, the stuff "behind" the rifles can only be hit by longer range SFTs, the staging area would be totally safe unless theres a breakthrough of the other "lines". Trucks and trains and such would stay in the "staging area"

3) another rating for SFTs, "strength" to go with readiness, morale, and experience. Strength and readiness wont be tied together anymore.

4) supply capture

5) tech tree broken down ala Hearts of Iron, research Tank Engines, Tank Guns, or Tank Armor to improve specific areas of SFTs. Upgrade your strategic bombers defense, but not their range, research a ships fuel consumption but not its guns, etc

6) multiple buildings/loctypes/terrains per hex, a city, factory, airbase, fortress, and hills should all be able to occupy the same hex

I like listening to my own music while playing, but the loud "epic" score every time i go to load up my next PBEM turn just slays me..

Id like to also second:

3a) Random maps where a regime's nation isn't broken into 2 or 3 geographically separated areas (make it a selectable option). If there is a lot of water, this can't be avoided but it would be nice if the routine did its best to not separate your land area.

And add that id love leaders you could assign to your units or at least HQs

And even though its totally unrealistic id also like:

Coal, Foodstuffs, Money and Manpower Morale for your citizens, not enough foodstuffs and coal, no food and power.... no happy citizens, they go on strike Government types unlimited map size PPs would enact civil reforms, money would do research and diplomacy expansion of the time line from ww2, to 1920s-1950s Rain and fog

Youd think since I love Dwarf Fortress, and Aurora, I could get past Empire Deluxe's graphics, but I simply cant. Theres no nuance to it at all. It has no "style". (Aurora suffers from this too, but its so detailed, one you read your first battle log, youll never stop playing it)

ATG ill play instead of ED simply because I love the art style. The "realistic cartoon" game noire that Vic has developed is the best 2d art style ive seen since Dune by Westwood Studios, but then again, they had Frank Herbet to go buy for direction...

That being said, ED's AI is about as good as it gets in 4x games. Open C++ was the right call there.

If he'd just allow the tileset to be edited maybe I could get into it.

Youd think since I love Dwarf Fortress, and Aurora, I could get past Empire Deluxe's graphics, but I simply cant. Theres no nuance to it at all. It has no "style". (Aurora suffers from this too, but its so detailed, one you read your first battle log, youll never stop playing it)

ATG ill play instead of ED simply because I love the art style. The "realistic cartoon" game noire that Vic has developed is the best 2d art style ive seen since Dune by Westwood Studios, but then again, they had Frank Herbet to go buy for direction...

That being said, ED's AI is about as good as it gets in 4x games. Open C++ was the right call there.

If he'd just allow the tileset to be edited maybe I could get into it.

Has anyone tackled the open C++ AI ? It never really got picked up that I could tell. I think one guy got it compiled but I don't know if there are any mods out there. Many people have fiddled with the engagement rules and the unit database.

A quick fix to improve the AI would be to add a scenario editor option to define what a typical infantry, mech, armor unit should contain. That way you wouldn't have to rely on the AI's tendency to create lots of all infantry units, and instead it would try to create rational units.

Youd think since I love Dwarf Fortress, and Aurora, I could get past Empire Deluxe's graphics, but I simply cant. Theres no nuance to it at all. It has no "style". (Aurora suffers from this too, but its so detailed, one you read your first battle log, youll never stop playing it)

ATG ill play instead of ED simply because I love the art style. The "realistic cartoon" game noire that Vic has developed is the best 2d art style ive seen since Dune by Westwood Studios, but then again, they had Frank Herbet to go buy for direction...

That being said, ED's AI is about as good as it gets in 4x games. Open C++ was the right call there.

If he'd just allow the tileset to be edited maybe I could get into it.

Has anyone tackled the open C++ AI ? It never really got picked up that I could tell. I think one guy got it compiled but I don't know if there are any mods out there. Many people have fiddled with the engagement rules and the unit database.

Yeah there was an AI mod floating around somewhere, its been ages since ive played it, but I know it kicked my butt a few times.

Advanced Tactics is a great game , however it needs a strong improvement in AI. A game with a cheated AI will never become a classic . Those interested in this issues should take a look to this article about Heroes V AI: http://www.bonddisc.com/ref/h5/ai.htm

Single biggest issue for me is unit composition for AI - AI has come up with some pretty funky units: 6 trucks, 1 staff & 1 machine gun. Or a stack of 46 fighter planes (which proceed to wipe out my airforce. Not sure what the fix would be, but pre-defined units for AI might be possible.

Second biggest AI concern is tendency for AI to build too many units and then have problems supplying them later in game.

Would also like to see suggestions per Webizen's list above 8, 9, 10 and 1a & 4a.

Advanced Tactics is a great game , however it needs a strong improvement in AI. A game with a cheated AI will never become a classic . Those interested in this issues should take a look to this article about Heroes V AI: http://www.bonddisc.com/ref/h5/ai.htm

Impressive article. I guess it's a fine balance between super AI and playable good AI on and within a budget.

Impressive article. I guess it's a fine balance between super AI and playable good AI on and within a budget.

Absolutely. After reading the article, I guess most of the games in market have a cheated AI. Even many of them we have played before were surely cheated. To my mind, companies find in cheated AI a good way for selling games . A lot of customers are children or teenagers who love to win always

On the other hand AT needs a more realistic supply system for single and multiplayer games. Something like the resource mod. Improving the AI and the logistics in AT are critical points to get a perfect wargame or a classic .

Improving the AI and the logistics in AT are critical points to get a perfect wargame or a classic

Well exactly. Problem is Vic has been quite busy with the Decisive Campaigns series, so there surely will be a patch for ATG... but how long it will take to write AT Platinum??

Another question comes to my mind, will these two games AT and DC, evolve along different paths *or* will they at some time merge together? Question too is what Vic would like to do most; DC or AT Platinum? ... the sales of his latest DC game may influence this decision ofcourse.

Personally I love both, but the randomness of ATG and the "what-if" of ATG makes me like that game the most.

Improving the AI and the logistics in AT are critical points to get a perfect wargame or a classic

Well exactly. Problem is Vic has been quite busy with the Decisive Campaigns series, so there surely will be a patch for ATG... but how long it will take to write AT Platinum??

Another question comes to my mind, will these two games AT and DC, evolve along different paths *or* will they at some time merge together? Question too is what Vic would like to do most; DC or AT Platinum? ... the sales of his latest DC game may influence this decision ofcourse.

Personally I love both, but the randomness of ATG and the "what-if" of ATG makes me like that game the most.

I suspect there will be a DC Gold Edition to come along about now. I think the two game series are forever parted.